China uses satellite, drones to fight pollution

BEIJING - China is using satellites and drones to detect air pollution around Beijing and the practice will be expanded, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Wednesday.

Satellites and drones, which can detect clandestine emissions and capture images with a resolution of up to 4 centimeters, have been used in the cities of Tangshan, Xingtai and Handan in north China's Hebei Province, a pollution-plagued region surrounding Beijing.

Since November, an anti-pollution campaign has covered nearly 25,000 enterprises, more than 33,000 construction sites and over 65,000 restaurants. As a result, nearly 2,000 small workshops were closed and 1,900 factories and enterprises punished.

The ministry has found that the majority of Chinese provinces and autonomous regions have inadequate measures to reduce pollution and have failed to impose environmental law.

A total of 141 companies were found to have broken laws nationwide and industrial pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area was reduced as a result of the five-month campaign.